Delegates call for WTO reform

SEATTLE {AP} The collapse of an effort to launch a new round of global trade talks left the United States and 134 other nations searching for answers Saturday over what went wrong and how to fix it.

Anti-World Trade Organization demonstrators who thronged the streets and official delegations inside the convention hall agreed on one thing: The 5-year-old Geneva-based organization, created to referee rules of global trade, is a flawed institution in need of repair.

"The WTO really needs reform," an exhausted Pascal Lamy, the European Union's trade commissioner, told a news conference early Saturday. He spoke shortly after the talks had collapsed following four days of marathon bargaining.

Lamy, a Frenchman, pointedly noted that he was not a Johnny-come-lately to this view. He warned throughout the week that the WTO's organizational flaws could doom the effort to launch new negotiations for lowered trade barriers in agriculture, manufactured goods and services such as banking.

In the end, he was proved right. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky was forced to concede as much in her own closing news conference.

President Clinton believes progress was made in Seattle "although significant differences remain."

He said in a statement Saturday he is optimistic "we can use the coming months to narrow our differences" and prepare for a new round of talks.

"I am determined to move forward on the path of free trade and economic growth while ensuring a human face is put on the global economy," he said.

Clinton had pushed during his visit to Seattle for the WTO to open its now-secret dispute-settlement procedures to engender greater public confidence in the outcomes.

Barshefsky, who chaired the conference and came under heavy fire from Third World delegates for not keeping them apprised, said the WTO should be opened up not only to the outside world but also to its member nations.

"We found that the WTO has outgrown the processes appropriate for an earlier time," Barshefsky said.In the old days, the WTO and its predecessor organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, conducted trade rounds mainly as the province of rich countries. But the organization, which started with 23 member countries in 1947, now has grown to 135 nations; three-fourths of them are from the Third World.